Chapter Text
He awakens to the crack of something smacking against his window. It’s a sharp, sickly noise, and he has to pull the chair over the window to try and see what caused the offending noise two stories up. He sees nothing except the dusty shape of a bird, and something twists inside him in a panicked worry. If he can’t see the bird, if it’s not flying or perched on the ledge-
Dave shimmies off the chair he was kneeling on, not even stopping to pull on shoes before he slips out into the hallway. He gets some looks from the passing servants, he’s still in his nightwear and he’s not supposed to stray far from Dirk’s room, but he’s just going out into the garden for a moment. It shouldn’t hurt, right? No one stops him anyway, and he makes his way down to the ground floor, as silent as he can, only the little pitter patter of his bare feet to be heard on stone floor.
He is small for his age and has to stand on his toes to open the door without it swinging in with a bang. The night is chilly, the grass damp between his toes when he steps off the path to follow the hedges along the wall of the castle until he rounds a corner and sees where his own window would be--
He moves as quickly as his little body can carry him, keeping his eyes firmly on the ground looking, searching and hoping that he won’t find anything. To his horror he does, a small bird stunned and twitching in the grass several stories from where it smacked into his window. Dave kneels, watching it’s little chest rise and fall as it struggles to right itself.
Training to be a knight, he knows what it looks like when something is injured and broken. He’s sure that’s what's wrong with the wing, why it can’t get itself to its feet easily and fly away. It certainly is afraid enough to try anyway, fluttering and beating its wings despite it’s injury when small hands move to scoop it up. He tries to be careful, to catch the wings and hold it firmly yet gently so it can’t hurt itself further, but he’s only rewarded with aggressive biting and pecking at his fingers. That could be tolerated.
He is glad he left the door open when he makes his way back to the side entrance he left out of, but closing it as he comes in again is another issue. He can’t just stop holding the bird, or an injured bird would then be loose in the servants hallway in the castle. He closes it the best he can, shifting the bird in his hands while he tries to pull it shut with his foot. It doesn’t shut all the way, but it’s as good as he can manage without losing the bird so he scurries back up the servants staircase to reach his and his brother’s rooms.
Dave shouldn’t be so surprised with who he ends up running into.
He knows Hal hardly uses his own room. He’d go far enough to say that Dirk’s room was effectively both of their rooms, yet he is still surprised when he runs into Hal walking the halls at night. Normally that might cause him to fuss at his older brother, tell him that he’s not supposed to be up out of his room so late, but that’s what he is doing isn’t it? And he isn’t nearly as old as his brother, has far more restrictions than him.
For what it’s worth Hal seems to be just as surprised to see him, then immediately perplexed by what he is holding in his hands.
“What are you up to Dave?” coming from Hal things always tended to sound at least a little accusatory, but he’s used to it. There’s no bite behind his words, and it’s Hal, they were close right? Partners in crime? Same red eyes? So he holds out the wounded bird to show his older brother, trusting that he wouldn’t try to get him in trouble for breaking the rules to help it.
“It ran into my window. Its wing is hurt, I think.” The normal fuant of words that would bubble from him wasn’t there, hindered by sleep and worry for the little creature that had grown stiff from fear in his hands. He had read about that, in the books on birds he borrowed from the castle library. Birds were prey so if they couldn’t flee they would freeze in hopes it wouldn’t be seen.
Dave almost expects Hal’s curiosity to be sated, for him to run off to spend the night with Dirk-- he could be self centered like that. Instead Hal takes a step forward, studying the bird in his hands and then his face before turning and motioning him to follow.
“Let’s see if we can do something about that.”
Dave follows Hal, surprised when he is led to his own room and ushered inside. He stands as Hal digs around under his bed, almost tempted to ask what he was looking for, when he finally comes back out with a box.
“Hey! Those are my bones!” it has Dave scrabbling up and onto the bed, bird firmly held in both hands still. All Hal gives him is a weird look before opening the box and gently dumping it’s contents out onto the dresser.
“Okay that’s a weird thing to collect Dave. This box is just going to be the bird’s home for a while okay?” he sits on the bed, urging Dave to settle next to him as he offers the box to his younger brother. Grabbing a small shirt abandoned on the floor, he watches Dave gently place the bird in the box. He has the shirt at the ready, but with the young boy hovering it stays frozen in place.
“Do you know what kind of bird it is?” Hal finally prompts after a long stretch of silence. Dave seems enraptured by the bird, as he was with all birds, and it was probably best to get his attention off of it if he wanted it to heal.
“No?” big red eyes look up at Hal, “Do you?”
Hal’s eyes narrow in a way that, to Dave, normally indicates mischief afoot. The tone that Hal replies with is soft and affectionate though; he scooches closer to his brother, settling himself against him as Hal leans over and cages him in the comforting wall of his arms. One hand props himself up on the bed, the other leads Dave’s attention to the red mark on the bird's chest.
“Do you know what this is?”
“Blood?” Little eyes go wide, his voice soft and shaky.
“No, no.” a soft laugh, a reassurance, “ It’s not blood, though it’s wing is in pretty bad shape. It’s a feather mark that makes it really easy to remember it’s name. Only reason I remember it anyway.”
“ What’s it called?”
“It’s called a bleeding heart dove, because it looks like it’s bleeding. Like it’s little heart is broken.” It's morbid, but even in his sleepiness and all that worry he seems excited in a way only a young child could be.
“Oh I know about doves! They eat seeds and make a sound like--” he tries to make the soft coo that he’s heard outside of his window before. Hal’s soft smile widens a bit, and he finally puts the shirt he had retrieved from the floor over the box.
“Well, I’ll see about getting it some food and water okay? You need to get back to bed Dave, training starts early for you, right?” He shifts back and forth on the bed in the way children do when reluctant to sleep , but with a little coaxing from his older brother he is under the covers once more. The chair is pulled from where Dave had dragged it to the window and set near the bed, the box with the dove placed on the seat. “ She’ll be right here, okay?”
Big red eyes peek above the blankets pulled up to his nose, and he nods a bit. There is a certain doubt that Hal wouldn’t actually bring food and water for his new, injured, friend, but he’s back with a dish and a handful of grain soon enough. Hal can’t help but laugh when he’s very clearly still awake.
“Didn’t I tell you to go to sleep?” His voice is teasing, and he makes his way quietly around the bed to the chair to lift the cover on the box and deposit the food and water within, “ This was a pain to get, so you owe me.”
He wasn’t serious though, it was made clear with that humored smile and a wink. Dave can’t help but giggle.
“I’m serious, go to sleep Dave. Morning comes early for us.”